Speakers from Conference Past Spring 2018

2018 Spring Conference

Bellwether Polling for Improved Election Forecasting

The authors describe a non-traditional, highly effective public opinion polling methodology offering improved election forecasts. As well as conducting state-wide polls, the Suffolk University Political Research Center polls in small electoral units, bellwethers, which historically exhibit voting patterns close to the actual election outcome. Bellwethers combined with state polls correctly forecast election outcomes in 97% of trials where a clear winner could be determined (i.e., no ties). The contribution of this work is to offer an open-source methodology for improving accuracy in election forecasting.

Elizabeth J. Wilson

Professor of MarketingSuffolk University

David A. Paleologos

Market research has always been intrigued by psychological testing. Whether it’s projective tests or personality tests, marketers have tried to tap their use for better business advantages. But now, in a world that is exploding with data, how can we update psychological testing by merging it with data science? This talk will highlight the future possibilities of psychometrics for marketing.

Kenneth R. Faro, Ph.D.

Market research has always been intrigued by psychological testing. Whether it’s projective tests or personality tests, marketers have tried to tap their use for better business advantages. But now, in a world that is exploding with data, how can we update psychological testing by merging it with data science? This talk will highlight the future possibilities of psychometrics for marketing.

Eric Rosenman

Principal IQVIA Consulting Services

Steven Blahut

Market Replication ModelsA Case Study on Why Primary Research is Still Essential

We will show our recent analysis illustrating that dollar-for-dollar primary research still has the biggest impact on marketing and sales. Leading the list of most impactful research are studies assessing new products or product extensions. Then we will present a case study to show that only models that accurately replicate markets can accurately predict the opportunity for new product offerings.

Tim O’Rourke

Applying Consumer Neuroscience Technology
to Optimize Marketing in the Age of Distraction

In a world where consumers are more distracted than ever, with shrinking attention spans, how can marketers know if their advertising breaks through the clutter and makes an emotional, lasting connection? Traditional research that involves asking and telling is not always enough. Traditional research that involves asking and telling is not always enough. This session will discuss how to capture nonconscious, unbiased, consumer response, consumer response using neuroscience technology. The two will share how they recently used consumer neuroscience to optimize the advertising of Boston Ballet’s largest production of the year, The Nutcracker.

Debbie Medvinsky

VP, Client Service
Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience

Jennifer Weissman

There are many field companies and it’s easy to get overwhelmed and use the same partners indefinitely. It’s important to be sure that the partners you’re using are best for your projects and they’re offering efficiency, competitive pricing, and quality data. There are many areas to evaluate them on and I’ll share tips and tricks for how to do this.

Angela McCue

Companies use digital tracking to understand path-to-purchase, media consumption and more. Few understand the power of Digital Tracking for trendspotting, and this provides unique insights about what consumers are doing online, how they’re engaging with competitors and more.

This session will provide a first-ever, in-depth look into actual shopper behaviors across many brand categories and across hundreds of retailers.

Peter Shafer

Storytelling is how we turn data into something coherent and meaningful, even emotional. This session explores what we mean by a story, the importance of a unifying story idea and the power of story shapes and structures. These foundational concepts are illustrated by real-world examples from a variety of media including effective market research stories.